I went to the entrance to the restroom, where the hallway did a sharp bend so nobody could peek into the girls' pee-palace.

Okay. I'll deal with Benjamin. You're safe, okay? Nothing's gonna happen." His mouth pulled tight against itself. And now I was having some sort of heart attack. Because when he looked at me like that, my chest started to feel like it was turned inside out. "Promise." And that—the promise, the way he said it with utter certainty—was enough to make me tear up again.

His eyes were green chips of flame, and the growl was so thick it blurred the air around him, the sound of a very pissed off skinchanger.

I pulled in a soft breath. My lungs were starving, crying out for air. I lay still, and a cough tickled at the back of my throat. It always happens when you're hiding, a cough, a sneeze, something. It's stupid. The body decides to screw around with you, even though it knows being quiet is the only way it's going to go on living.

What do you say when someone takes on a really bad ass, murdering sucker for you? There just aren't words for that.

If something is visceral and unsettling for me, my job is to not look away, not to punk out. Sometimes the dark things come from places inside me, experiences Ive had, that need to be transformed.

"So you're a dom, huh? Nice." I stabbed my pancakes again. "Kinky." "You're the one who ties people up, babe."